Police detective to compete in Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon

By Jessica Belasco :
June 1, 2012
: Updated: June 5, 2012 12:12pm

San Antonio Police Department Detective Carlos Ortiz swims at the Northside Natatorium, Monday, May 28, 2012. Ortiz is training to compete in the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon on June 10. The race consists o a 1.5 swim from Alcatraz Island to the shore followed by an 18-mile bike ride and ends with an 8 mile run.

Photo By Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News

San Antonio police dDetective and Ironman Carlos Ortiz will compete this Sunday in the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon..

For Carlos Ortiz, training for triathlons is also a stealth weapon in his job as a police officer.

A few years ago, Ortiz spotted a teenager he suspected was smoking marijuana. The boy began to run, but Ortiz chased him for about three blocks, grabbing him before he could scale a fence.

The boy seemed stunned the police officer could keep up.

“It was his rotten luck,” Ortiz, 46, says. “He had no idea what training I had gone through, that I was an Ironman.”

Compared to completing an Ironman triathlon — a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a marathon-length, 26.2-mile run — chasing down a kid is a piece of cake, Ortiz says.

Ortiz, an 18-year veteran of the San Antonio Police Department who recently was promoted to detective, has finished three Ironman races. His next event, the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon on Sunday in San Francisco, is shorter than an Ironman, but he considers it more challenging.

During the race, athletes swim 1.5 miles in the San Francisco Bay from Alcatraz Island to the city's shoreline. The water is 55 degrees and has a strong current. Several inmates drowned fleeing from Alcatraz when it operated as a prison.

“Talking about it right now makes my palms sweaty,” says Ortiz. “I've been taking cold showers and swimming in Boerne Lake when the water is choppy, so I can learn to swim when the water is in your face. You're going to swallow saltwater, no matter how hard you try not to.”

Rumors of man-eating sharks in the bay are myths, he says. Sharks swim in the waters, but they're small bottom feeders.

“As long as I'm faster than the swimmer next to me, I'll be OK,” Ortiz jokes.

The swim is just the beginning, however. The race continues with an 18-mile bike ride followed by an eight-mile run through the hills of San Francisco, including 400 steps up a cliff. The average race time for last year's event was about three hours, 15 minutes.

Ortiz landed a spot in the 32nd annual event through a lottery after years of entering the draw. He'll be one of 2,000 triathletes competing on Sunday.

In preparation, he's been training five or six days a week. He swims at Northside Independent School District's natatorium and Boerne Lake, runs seven to 15 miles around his neighborhood and cycles the hilly Scenic Loop Road.

A longtime runner, Ortiz entered his first marathon in 2002 on a dare from a fellow police officer, who didn't show up for the race. In 2005, the same friend dared him to do a triathlon. Again, the friend was a no-show, but Ortiz finished the race and began competing in races of increasing distance.

“You get hooked,” he says. “The camaraderie, the competition, the challenge.”

Ortiz participates in three or four triathlons a year and never has failed to finish. He completed his first Ironman in Florida in 2007. When he went back to work, his fellow officers had a dispatcher send him to a supposed crime at a park. When Ortiz arrived, they had a cake waiting for him.

He set a personal record at an Ironman in Arizona last year, finishing in 13 hours, 35 minutes.

No matter his time, he says, he's always happy to finish a race.

“Usually by the run, the last part, your body starts to say, ‘Hey stupid, what are you doing?'” he says. “But then afterward it's just complete euphoria.”